I attend what some would term a mega-church. Mars Hill Church in Seattle has about 4,000 to 4,500 regular attenders (depending on who the pastor has upset from the week before). But we’ve outgrown our facilities and our new building won’t be ready until next fall if all goes according to schedule.
One of the solutions is the ‘video venue’ idea that other large churches (most notably Bethlehem Baptist — John Piper’s church) have used. The sermon is preached live at the main campus and recorded. It’s then played at another site while everything else is ‘live’ including pastors onsite, etc.
This Sunday, Jan 22, was the roll-out for our first stab at this model. A local para-church ministry (www.crista.org) has donated one of its auditoriums to us to use, rent free, on Sundays. They even allowed us to redecorate it however we wanted. The best news for us is that it is just a couple miles from home, which is probably the closest we’ve ever lived to our place of worship, except for a year or so in college. To make it even better, even at full
capacity, the auditorium only holds about 400, so it’ll be more like a small church than the mammoth 1,000+ services at the main campus.
We were expecting about 200 for a successful launch. Official attendance came in at 400. They had to bring in chairs twice and people were standing, sitting everywhere they could. I had to get there late because I had to be down at the main campus earlier in the day. I had to stand outside and look in through a door, so for me the ‘pastor’ consisted of a pair of shoes (which was all I could see). Once the singing/communion time started (yes, we have the sermon first and do everything else as a response to God’s Word being proclaimed), I
managed to get in and sit with my family.
Those who know me know I’m not a very emotional guy. Except for when I see someone breaking the spine of a book, not much gets me choked up. But to see a new campus launch packed out in what is the second-most unchurched city in America, well, I’m punch happy about it all. We are most likely going to have to see a second service soon to accomodate everyone. The numbers at the main campus were not bad at all (if you take into consideration that the Super Bowl playoffs were during the last two services), so all those who came to the new campus did not drain away significant numbers from the main campus. To see the name of Christ proclaimed in such a way… Amen!